Occupational Health Program for High Risk of Musculoskeletal Pain among Primary School Teachers

The term “musculoskeletal pain” here refers to work-related injuries that lasted more than a
day, affected daily activities, and happened during work hours. Aim: The present study aimed to
evaluate the effect of occupational health program for high risk of musculoskeletal pain among
primary school teachers. Design: A quasi-experimental design Settings: This study was
conducted at four governmental preparatory schools, for boys and girls were located in the El
Waily Zone at El - Abbassia District, Cairo Governorate. Sample: A purposive sample was used
to conduct this study. The total sample size included 93 teachers (44 teachers from Esmail
Elkabani, & El Salam school and 49 from Ghamra, & El Abbassia preparatory school), they were
chosen according to inclusion &exclusive criteria. Tools: Four tools were used in the present
study included a self administered questionnaire to assess teachers‟ general characteristics, an
observational checklist was used for assessing the body posture and workstation layout, teachers‟
practices toward ergonomics exercises, Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) and
anthropometric measurement to assess body mass index. Results: The results shows that 44.6%
of primary school teachers their age started from 30 and above with the mean ±SD36.4±2.6 ,
58.5% of them were male and 78.7% of the studied teachers were suffering from musculoskeletal
pain .There was a highly statistically significant differences among primary school teachers
according to their total satisfactory knowledge about skeletal pain. The same results indicates
that there was a highly statistically significant differences between the study sample according to
their total practices pre & post program at P <0.001 with positive relation between teachers total
knowledge in relation to their total practices pre &post program implementation. Conclusion:
The occupational health program had a statistically significant improvement in primary school
teacher‟s knowledge and practices at post program phases compared to pre program
implementation. Recommendations: Increase the awareness of work-related musculoskeletal
pain prevention and management among primary school teachers and apply ergonomics training
program aiming to maintaining optimal posture and teach of them how to avoid/decrease MSDs
while working at school through the role of school health nurse.